I got to spend about an hour with WOW final today (about half of it playing and half watching). I am not really a fighting game afficianado so I don't get tremendously excited by fighting games. Some impressions of the game. Nice opening FMV but doesn't seem as exciting as Road Rash. Video of skull split by dagger and opening book. Didn't pay a whole lot of attention to it as I wanted to see the fighting. Front end menu seems well layed out. As best as I can recall here goes. Top of menu had choice of tournament, versus, or demo mode. Next level allowed you to choose venue you wanted to fight in (pit, bridge, roof, etc). Next level allowed you to adjust (handicap) fighter one or two. Also a menu to adjust the music and the sound of the characters. We played with sound effects all the way up and music middling. When you start play you zoom over a group of mountains into a castle. Very cool, beautiful graphics. Whoops...at this point you've also chosen your caracter from the menu. I got to play Konotori, the Ninja, and Shaky Jake. Used the EGM card (current issue) to try moves. Contrary to the EGM review it was relatively easy to execute many ofthe moves. The graphics are beautiful throughout; the prettiest I've ever seen in a fighting game. The Ninja's helicopter kick sent him flying across the screen buzzing like a chopper. It was easy to send Konotori's fan flying across the screen and Konotori herself flying above the scene. Zooming in and out from the characters depending upon the character's proximity to each other was really cool. Some characters seemed a bit more powerful than other characters at the same level. I got my virtual ass kicked by Dragon when I played as the Ninja but was able to tidily put the Dragon away when I played as Shaky Jake. I was able to adjust the difficulty easily to make it a more than fair fight (where Dragon beat me when I played Shaky Jake. Shak Jake was really fun to play as. I also saw some really cool fatalities, one, similar to the MK move which knocks a guy off the bridge onto spikes, knocked a character off the bridge into a graveyard. Saw a backbreaker by, I believe, Major Gaines which broke a guy in half. Admittedly an hour is not enough time to make a solid judgement about a game but based on the time I spent with it the game was a lot of fun, has great graphics, and is relatively easy to control. It is derivative of existing games but so, IMO, is every game in the genre with the exception of Virtual Fighters. I'll be picking up a copy next week when it comes out for everyone. If you like fighting games I do not think you'll be disappointed. Regards...Marc Baime
michel.buffa@cmu.edu